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It’s a freezing cold Monday and though I am trying to break myself of an extreme coffee addiction I pour a cup and grab a breakfast bar and jump in the car REALLY wishing it was a snow day. Across campus I trudge reminding myself how fortunate I am and to count my blessing, not disregard them as punishments.
Good Morning Ms. Lopez!
I say as I drop my dance bag off knowing I won’t see my house until at least 7:30 that night. Up 2 more flights of stairs to Adv world lit where I sit torn between modernism and post modernism. The man who teaches the class has a DR in law and in education, so he argues the points back and forth with himself opening it up to the peanut gallery with 15 minuets left. There are a whole lot of questions and very few answers.
BEEP
On to Period 2 back down those flights of steps and to Spanish. From the moment I walk in that door until the moment I walk out no English will be spoken. Oedipus Rex is left at the door right next to a pile of “OMG!s” and “did you see her tweet?! I mean my gosh!”. Silence besides our little esponal teacher explaining and unknown concept in another language. And that is when the knot comes. The one that pulls tights against my chest and overcomes my whole body. I tense up and start scribble lists down.
The list grows and grows and all that happens is I get more and more overwhelmed and all I can think about is that bag packed in the corner. The one that is keeping me away from home but yet brings me so much relaxation. All day I struggle to go and teach dance or go home and study and do homework. Finally when my list has exceeded the length of my paper I text my mom having her make the decision for me. Honestly what would I do without her? I knew what her answer would be, I knew what I should do but I just couldn’t make the call myself. So home at 5:30 and doing homework until 11. And in 6.5 hours I’m waking up to do it again.
But tomorrow I plan to leave the trudging at home. I will leave the idea of doubt in bed. The knot that consumes me on the daily will be tied in a bow and left in place of my uniform. Tomorrow I will ace the morality test. I will understand the subjunctive. Geometry will not pull my hair out. Tomorrow I will find the good in my education and be proud of the stress. I will acknowledged the grounds I am receiving the gift of schooling on and I will pray for women around that world that someday they may trudge and doubt and sit at a desk doing hours of work on top of the hours of school. Because I am fortunate to experience it now I pray they will complain one day too.

Thought I would challenge you this week and leave it plain and simple. I will leave you with a question. Something for you to think on. Something for you to decide whether or not you excel in this area or not. How do you view the word? Positively? Negatively? Are you optimistic? Liberal? Conservative? There is no right or wrong answer as long as YOU are happy with this outlook. So this week challenge is to evaluate yourself. Good luck!

Good and bad. Nice and evil. Truth and lies. To every positive there is a negative. To every event there are two consequences. A good and a bad. A simple snow day, for example – Good: No school, sleep in, relax. Bad: Another day at the end of the year, missed work, restless children. So, ok, that really isn’t something we can control but there are so many things in our day-to-day lives that have two outcomes, good and bad. From a high school perspective, I feel as though I am constantly being judged. Sometimes it is the good part of the consequence and sometimes the bad, but most often, it is both. You tell someone you like their hair. That person thinks you are really nice and appreciates the compliment. The person next to her thinks you are being fake and just trying to get everyone to like you. You put yourself together in the mornings (style hair, iron uniform, put on makeup, etc.) and you get labeled as a “try hard” and/or someone who puts effort in the way they look. This one gets on my nerves SO much, ughh I hate it when people say this; a guy holds the door open for the girl behind him and he automatically becomes “whipped.” Really, people? We are going to persecute the few high school boys who are still polite? No, they are not “whipped” they just simply have manners. And the bad things have double consequences, too. Say you break your grounding and go out to a party – good: you have fun for a few hours. Bad: You get home and are in BIG trouble! The thing is with this whole double consequence thing, one is almost always more dominate than the other. YOU have control over which you make the dominate. When that girl’s hair looks really pretty, are you going to think about what everyone else says or are you going to think about how you will make her day? YOU decide on that one. Sometimes I catch myself needing others approval more than my own. That is not what I want but for some reason it happens time after time. My long term goal is to never base my decisions on the popular choice. Someday my decisions will be made because that is the decision I wanted to. So my challenge to you (and me) this week is to do what you want to do and dwell on the positive side of your consequences.

Forever we are told, ” Treat others as you want to be treated”. Sure there are many different ways to say it: “That wasn’t very nice, would you like it if he/she did that to you?”,”Only dish it make sure you can take it”,”What goes around comes around”,”Tweet others how you want to be tweeted” (Yes I saw this on my feed yesterday, needless to say I laughed out loud!!) And so many other ways. We are told to treat others nicely because we want to be treated nicely. My challenge to you is to be the golden rule. Be even nicer to others than you expect to be treated yourself. Put other first because they belong there. I remember this poster in my first grade teachers classroom that read:

Jesus

Others

You.

Joy is Jesus, others, yourself. The golden rule is, well the golden rule. It is the standard for life. Treat others as well as you want to be treated. But shouldn’t we want to rise above the standard? Shouldn’t we not only want others to be happy and feel good about themselves but also inspire them to do the same to others? Rise up to the occasion to making someone feel special. Make it your mission everyday when you wake up to make someone’s day extraordinary. This will not only make them feel great but you will too. Send that text reminding an old friend or family member you are thinking about them. Smile at someone who doesn’t get a lot of smiles. Be EXTRA patient with that peer that tends to lag behind. (I need to work on this!!) Be the golden rule, but yet be more. Set the standard higher than being kind to people because you want others to be kind to you.